Carefore Global New Zealand brought home the title during the award ceremony held on September 17 at Bangkok for its product Colos lgGold.
This is a functional powder beverage containing colostrum immunoglobulin (IgG), synbiotics, and lactoferrin as key ingredients for immune support.
Calcium and vitamin D3 are also added for bone health and the product also boast a low glycemic index of 30 for blood sugar management.
The product made using New Zealand dairy also uses a proprietary ingredient delivery system known as BioLactol. By forming micelles in the gut, it is said to improve IgG uptake across the intestine.
Suitable for kids as young as three years old all the way to adults and seniors, the product has seen success in Vietnam where it made its market debut through direct-selling company Care for Vietnam, formerly New Image Vietnam, about two years ago.
Colos lgGold emerged as the winner against two other finalists: Oliferin Antholive Gold by Nutriva International and Probiotics by Fengjie Biomedical.
The judges said that they were impressed with the strong clinical evidence, innovative absorption technology, and impressive commercial success of the product, despite it being relatively new to the market.
Speaking to NutraIngredients, Vu Hai Duong Leo, deputy general director at Care For Vietnam, said that consumers nowadays were looking for immune health supplements that not only provide support against seasonal illnesses, but also provide everyday immune resilience as well.
In Vietnam, this has created the trend of multi-benefit immune care products.
“Post-COVID, there is a trend towards multi-benefit immune care, not just for defense, but also for gut health, recovery, and also multivitamin and minerals for bone health etc,” he said.
The company also believes that a multi-benefit product could differentiate itself from the sea of immune supplements that rely on single functional ingredient, like simply probiotics or vitamin alone.
“Most products on the market focus only on just one element – either probiotics, or vitamins, or they contain too much sugar...
“We wanted to go beyond traditional vitamin formulations by combining the immune benefits of lgG from colostrum, probiotics for gut health, and essential vitamins and minerals to work together to strengthen overall immunity,” said Hoang Thi Tam Mercy, product development manager at Care For Vietnam.
Designing Colos lgGold
Colos lgGold was formulated by Dr Grant Washington-Smith, chief scientist at New Zealand-based Carefore Global.
He told NI that the product was designed to strengthen the adaptive immune system.
As compared to the innate immune system, the adaptive immune system is the body’s ability to recognize previous infections and trains the body to combat viral infections etc.
“To achieve this, we’ve used colostrum, and its immunoglobulins – in this case IgG, as we know that colostrum is rich in IgG.
“We also looked at other ways to support the body’s immune function by using a robust probiotics, and prebiotic that supports the role and function of probiotics,” he said.
The synbiotic used is a combination of Bifidobacterium as probiotic and inulin as prebiotic.
Synbiotics help support the body’s overall immune response by improving gut health.
To create a holistic formulation, he also tapped on the use of lactoferrin as a defence protein, as well as calcium and vitamin D3 for bone health.
Metabolic health
As consumers start to keep tabs on their blood sugar levels, controlling the amount of sugar in the formulation was also a key focus.
“This was not an easy journey, the team kept refining the prototype, adjusting the sweetness, flavour and used natural sweetener to create a light, natural sweetness, with low glycemic index.
“This means that the product is also friendly for people who are managing their blood sugar levels,” said Hoang Thi.
Colos lgGold has a glycemic index (GI) of 30, with each serve containing 2g of added sugar.
A GI of below 35 is suitable for diabetic and pre-diabetic individuals.
Upcoming plans
There are plans to introduce Colos lgGold into neighbouring countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines before expanding further afield across Asia-Pacific, said Duong.
Other plans include designing the product in new dosage formats, upgrading the formula, and even conducting a human clinical study.
Dr Washington-Smith said that an immunological cell-based assay would first be conducted, before embarking on a clinical trial.
The immunological cell-based assay will help researchers identify the immune health related biomarkers that Colos lgGold would have an effect on, so that the subsequent clinical trial could be designed to evaluate the effects of the product in these parameters in humans.
“We are looking at well-established models of gut response and gut immunity; human cell lines that are known to upregulate enterocytes in the gut, in order to identify the specific role of each ingredient in terms of the body’s immune response,” he said.
